North Tyneside

Volunteers Sought for Peer Mentoring in North Tyneside
On 4th January 2010, the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and the Newcastle Journal featured a story about mentoring opportunities for young people to work alongside learning disabled peers, to support them in thinking about their aspirations and work towards achieving fulfilling lives. More...>

Transition Employment Support Officer
North Tyneside employs a Transition Employment Support Officer to support young people with learning disabilities at Beacon Hill and Woodlawn schools to think about future jobs and careers. This role is funded until December 2011, through the National Transition Support Programme (TSP) grant. The North Tyneside multi-agency joint Getting a Life and TSP project team identified the need for the role through a gap analysis exercise.

Since starting in the role in September 2010, Kerry Davidson has been working intensively with staff, young people from year 9 upwards and parents at Beacon Hill school, getting to know the young people and helping them to plan and develop skills for the jobs they would like when they leave school. More...>

Oldham

Young People’s and Families Leadership
On 8th October 2009, 14 young people
and their parents met up at the Link Centre,
Oldham’s Independent Living Centre, to
talk about the Getting a Life programme
and how they could influence real change
for their lives. More...>

Michael's Story
Michael (20) is now in full time paid employment, working for Blue Arrow as a warehouse operative. He enjoys his job (especially the night shifts) and has more confidence as well as some new friends. More...>

David's Story
David (20) now works 20 hours a week at Dronsfields, a leading supplier of new and second hand Mercedes spare car parts. He is a valued member of the team, described as friendly, polite, punctual and reliable, and is really proud of his achievements in getting paid employment. David also has a severe learning disability. More...>

Manchester

Youth Supported Employment
Project
Paid after-school or weekend jobs for young people with learning disabilities in Manchester. More...>

Pure Innovations Ltd.
Established
in 1986, Pure Innovations provides support
and guidance for people with learning
disabilities in successfully finding paid
employment. More...>

Lucy's Story
Lucy has been working for Manchester
City Council’s, Manchester Learning Disability
Partnership (MLDP) since September 2009.
Lucy’s job title is Admin Assistant and
she is part of the administration team
at Chapman Place in Gorton. More...>

Young People’s Parliament
The Young People’s Parliament is open
to all young people, with a learning disability
across Manchester, aged 16-24.

The Parliament aims to give a voice to
young people with learning disabilities,
which will be heard and listened to by
local and national government, providers
of services for young people and other
agencies who have an interest in the views
and needs of young people. More...>

Helaina's Work Experience
Helaina Stone has just turned 16 and is thinking about what she wants to do after she leaves school. She has an interest in working with babies and young children and her work experience placements, organised by her mum Cath, have given her a taste of what it would be like to have a job in the future. More...>

Jame's Story
James has just turned 19 and is in his final year in the sixth form at Piper Hill SEN School, Wythenshawe. James lives in the area with his mum, and has now secured a part time job at a new Youth Hub there. More...>

Young People in Manchester pitch skills to local “Dragons”
Young people taking part in the Getting a Life programme in Manchester will be pitching their skills and interests to local employers in a “dragon’s den” style event, to secure work experience, jobs, and to gain interview practice. More...>

Herefordshire with miEnterprise

Self Employment for people with Learning
Disabilities
miEnterprise
is a social enterprise in Herefordshire,
supporting people with learning disabilities
to plan, set up, run and develop micro-businesses,
through supported self-employment. More...>

Jeremy's Story
Jeremy
was one of the first members of miEnterprise,
who has had a lifelong interest in books.
Jeremy was keen to start up a business
selling second-hand books.More...>

Matt and Mark's Story
Matt and Mark are friends who have been
maintaining an environmentally sensitive
site in Hereford city together for a couple
of years now. More...>

Marianne's Story
Marianne
is a very talented artist who has never
had support to sell her work commercially.
She works in a very detailed way on cityscapes,
landscapes and buildings. More...>

Gwyn's Story
Gwyn, 20, has two jobs as a caretaker and as a cleaner. He is the first young person from his school (a special school for children and young people with learning disabilities aged 4-19) to leave and go straight into paid employment rather than going on to college. More...>

Somerset

From Person-Centred Reviews to Strategic Change
A group of people from the Somerset Getting a Life cross-agency project team met on 11th December 2009 to look at what young people with learning disabilities involved in the Getting a Life programme were saying in their person centred reviews, and how these messages could be used to change the way local and national services are commissioned and delivered. More...>

Oliver's Story
As part of the Getting a Life leadership programme, Oliver (15) and his family started to think about who could help him get a job and a good life once he leaves school. More...>

Clare's Story
Clare is 18 and as part of the Getting a Life leadership programme, took part in a day of individual planning with her family and one of the programme leaders from the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities. More...>

Pelham's Story
Pelham, a 19-year old living with his family in Somerset, has a passion for black and white films, and for marionette puppets. More...>

ROC with Torbay

Ben's Story
Ben is 17 years old and has a real passion and talent for graffiti art. He is currently working towards an art award at Mayfield school.

Recently, he worked on a graffiti project in school with a professional graffiti artist, creating a masterpiece on the outside of the school for everyone to see. More...>

Chris' Story
Chris
is a learning-disabled young man aged
18 who is in his last year in the sixth
form at a mainstream secondary school
community college. He is preparing
to leave school next year and wants to
get a job. More...>

North East Lincolnshire

Leadership Programme
Young people involved in the Getting a Life project in North East Lincolnshire will be taking part in a leadership programme, designed to tackle the fact that lots of young people with learning disabilities don't see themselves as people who can work. More...>

Getting A Life Project LaunchOn 18th January 2011, the Getting a Life project for North East Lincolnshire was officially launched in Cleethorpes. Over 60 delegates attended the event, including young people with learning disabilities, families, carers, local support groups, colleges and schools, the local authority and the Care Trust. More...>

Hayley and Sydonie’s stories
Hayley Wright, 22, got the job at Jobs4All through the Work Step programme and Jobcentre Plus. Before working at Jobs4All, Hayley worked as a volunteer.

Sydonie, 20, had a yearlong work placement as an administrator for Shoreline Housing but unfortunately this did not lead to a paid job. More...>

Development Programme
Staff from eighteen organisations in North East Lincolnshire have now attended job coach training as part of the Getting a Life development programme. More...>

Person-centred Assessment Training
The North East Lincolnshire Getting a Life team held a two-day person-centred assessment training course. More...>

Lincolnshire

Work Experience
As part of a new approach developed by the Lincolnshire and Rutland Education Business Partnership, the Transition Service and Welfare to Work, young people with a disability will have the opportunity to try out different careers. More...>

Industry days give HOPE to young people
Young people with learning disabilities in Lincolnshire have taken part in an industry taster day, as part of a new approach developed by the Lincolnshire and Rutland Education Business Partnership, the Transition Service and Welfare to Work.

The Highlighting Opportunities and Prospects for Employment (HOPE) project gave young people an opportunity to try out tasks typical to a number of different careers, including construction, engineering, animal care, hair and beauty, hospitality and catering, and horticulture. Young people, teachers and support staff from special schools, and employers who led the workshops all rated the event highly. On average, 92% of the young people in each workshop said that they enjoyed it. More...>

Leicestershire

Northamptonshire

Norfolk

Norfolk Leadership Programme event
29-30 January 2010
On 29-30 January 2010, young people and families taking part in the Getting a Life programme in Norfolk met up together with Christine Burke and Jill Davies from the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities for a leadership workshop. More...>

New Beginings
Thirteen young people and families met in Norwich and Dereham to find out more about the programme and talk about what they want to do in their lives. More...>

Stephen's Story
Stephen started a permanent paid job as a kitchen assistant at the Vauxhall Centre, a community resource centre in Norwich. He is thrilled to have this opportunity in a job he really loves, and is now working 9am-3pm 5 days a week. More...>

Lewis's Story
Lewis is 14 and has a Circle of Support to help him think about what is working in his life, what needs to change, and to make plans for the future. More...>

George's Story
George is part of the Getting a Life project in Norfolk. His dream job is to be a postman. Whilst taking part in the leadership programme, George and his family started to think about the steps to take towards making his dream a reality. More...>

Essex

Havering

Newham

Richmond

Croydon

Medway

Kent

Nikki's Story
Nikki is 17 years old and lives in Kent. He has started doing a variety of work experience placements and is really happy to be working.

He wants to try a variety of options where he can get busy and use his hands, as he enjoys practical work, and wants to get a paid job in the future like everyone else. More...>

Getting a Life – Employment sub-group

Progress report November 2009
The Getting a Life employment sub-group
is made up of representatives from Kent
adult social care services, children’s
services, Jobcentre Plus, Connexions,
Thanet College, St Nicholas School, Valence
School, the Jobs Action Group, and Skillnet
Group CIC. The Getting a Life employment
sub-group are focusing on making sure
the following things happen:

All young people think about work
from year 9 and start to make plans
about getting a job

All young people get good benefits’
advice and good support to carry out
their plan to get and keep a job

Funding from different agencies is
used together to make sure that there
are good supported employment services

People can use their personal budgets
to get good support into employment

All people are supported in getting
jobs, including people with complex
needs

All agencies, people with learning
disabilities and family carers are working
together to find a way to make sure
more people get jobs More...>

Projects

The Getting a Life and Jobs First demonstration projects are showing how local areas can improve the employment rate of people with learning disabilities.

The sites involved are shown on the map.

Click any location on the map to see an overview of work in that area or use the menu on the left of the page to link to the areas own page.